Standards - XML: The Justice Information Sharing Bridge?
LegalXML Court Filing Standard Initiative
Pursuant to discussions at an August 1999 planning meeting, the Conference of State Court Administrators / National Association of Court Managers Joint Technology Committee (JTC) formed an E-Filing Standards sub-committee to pursue an Internet electronic filing specification for the courts.
To
that end, in December 1999, the JTC voted to partner with 
LegalXML, a non-profit organization that facilitates
development of XML standards for application within the legal
community. This coalition produced the LegalXML Court Filing
Standard.
This proposed standard was developed to serve as a universal translator among different electronic filing systems. The standard is built on the following tenets:
- This proposed standard deals only with the data to be exchanged, not with electronic filing systems themselves. It will not define or constrain any court's electronic filing system, or define how it should operate.
- This proposed standard does not attempt to impose common terminology. For instance, the proposed standard calls for the sender to complete a data field "document title," but it does not attempt to create a standard list of document titles, such as "Motion of Extension of Time" or "Motion of Summary Judgment." The standard developers understand that courts use different titles for the same matter: filers will be responsible for knowing the titles used by a particular court before filing a document electronically in that court. The XML standard will merely make it clear to the sending computer where to put the "document title," and to the receiving computer where to find it.
- This proposed standard does not attempt to define the electronic format for legal documents. Rather, it defines the data to be sent with the document to enable a court to identify the documents and its sender, and to create the docket entry in the court's case management information system (CMIS) for the filed documents. The standard also includes all data elements needed by a court to initiate a new case in its CMIS, if necessary.
The JTC has disseminated this proposal throughout the courts community for review and comment.
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